Beef Stew with Horseradish
With colder nights, more rain, leaves turning brown and Strictly Come Dancing back on saturday evening television, stew once again becomes one of the staple meals of the menu. It's also a fantastic one for scaling up and freezing portions for those nights when something warm and hearty is much desired, but the time to make it is lacking. Having only made this once, the quantities of horseradish and roasted garlic are a work in progress - the next attempt wil almost certainly have them doubled!
Stats
Serves: 4
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 2h 20 minutes
Ingredients
- 500g beef braising steak
- 80g smoked cubed pancetta
- 1/2 tsp olive oil
- 250g chantenay carrots
- 2 white onions
- 1 leek
- 1 medium sized parsnip
- 3 cloves of roasted garlic, whole and peeled
- 1 litre beef stock, made with OXO cubes
- 1/2 tsp dried thyme
- 3 tbsp plain flour
- 1/2 tsp hot horseradish
- 1 bay leaf
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 140 degrees, fan assisted
- Trim any fat/sinew from the beef and cut into approx 2cm cubes, if you want bigger pieces, do cut them larger but I wouldn't go any smaller
- Heat the oil in a large, oven proof, pan and fry off the beef until well browned. I needed to do this in two batches, dependent on the size of your pan you may need to do so in three. Don't crowd the pan or you won't get the meat properly browned, along with the flavour this imparts
- Set aside the beef and add the pancetta to the pan. Stir this frequently until a lot of the fat has rendered out and the pancetta has crisped.
- Set aside the pancetta, with the beef, leaving the rendered fat in the pan.
- Thinly slice the onions, cut the leek into one centimetre half moons and add both to the pan
- Stir well to coat with the oil, put a lid on the pan and cook for 10 minutes stirring from time to time, until well softened and coloured
- Halve the carrots, peel and slice the parsnip and add both to the onions, along with the beef, pancetta and any juice from the holding dish
- Add the flour. roasted garlic cloves, thyme and bay leaf and stir well to combine
- Add the stock, stirring well until everything is combined
- Bring to a simmer until the sauce has thickened before adding the hot horseradish and stirring in
- Put in the oven for 2 hours with a lid on
- Remove from the oven before the last 20 minutes are up, season to taste and if you so wish, drop in some dumplings made to the instructions on the Suet packet
I served this up with dumplings and mashed potato, it certainly wouldn't hurt to get another colour on the plate and serve up some steamed broccoli with the meal. If you do, make sure the plates are warm though, cold broccoli is a thing of horror.